Biography – The Tolkien Society J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch By David Doughan MBE Who was Tolkien? Photo by Pamela Chandler. © Diana Willson. Used with permission. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was a major scholar of the English language, specialising in Old and Middle English. Twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories, including most famously The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), which are set in a pre-historic era in an invented version of our world which he called by the Middle English name of Middle-earth. This was peopled by Men (and women), Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs (or Goblins) and of course Hobbits. He has regularly been condemned by the Eng. Lit. establishment, with honourable exceptions, but loved by literally millions of readers worldwide. In the 1960s he was taken up by many members of the nascent “counter-culture” largely because of his concern with environmental issues.

In 1997 he came top of three British polls, organised respectively by Channel 4 / Waterstone’s, the Folio Society, and SFX, the UK’s leading science fiction media magazine, amongst discerning readers asked to vote for the greatest book of the 20th century. Please note also that his name is spelt Tolkien (there is no “Tolkein”). Childhood and Youth The name “Tolkien” (pron.: Tol-keen; equal stress on both syllables) is believed to be of German origin; Toll-kühn: foolishly brave, or stupidly clever – hence the pseudonym “Oxymore” which he occasionally used. His father’s side of the family appears to have migrated from Saxony in the 18th century, but over the century and a half before his birth had become thoroughly Anglicised. Certainly his father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, considered himself nothing if not English. Arthur was a bank clerk, and went to South Africa in the 1890s for better prospects of promotion. There he was joined by his bride, Mabel Suffield, whose family were not only English through and through, but West Midlands since time immemorial.

So John Ronald (“Ronald” to family and early friends) was born in Bloemfontein, S.A., on 3 January 1892. His memories of Africa were slight but vivid, including a scary encounter with a large hairy spider, and influenced his later writing to some extent; slight, because on 15 February 1896 his father died, and he, his mother and his younger brother Hilary returned to England – or more particularly, the West Midlands. The West Midlands in Tolkien’s childhood were a complex mixture of the grimly industrial Birmingham conurbation, and the quintessentially rural stereotype of England, Worcestershire and surrounding areas: Severn country, the land of the composers Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Gurney, and more distantly the poet A. E. Housman (it is also just across the border from Wales). Tolkien’s life was split between these two: the then very rural hamlet of Sarehole, with its mill, just south of Birmingham; and darkly urban Birmingham itself, where he was eventually sent to King Edward’s School.

By then the family had moved to King’s Heath, where the house backed onto a railway line – young Ronald’s developing linguistic imagination was engaged by the sight of coal trucks going to and from South Wales bearing destinations like” Nantyglo”,” Penrhiwceiber” and “Senghenydd”. Then they moved to the somewhat more pleasant Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston. However, in the meantime, something of profound significance had occurred, which estranged Mabel and her children from both sides of the family: in 1900, together with her sister May, she was received into the Roman Catholic Church. From then on, both Ronald and Hilary were brought up in the faith of Pio Nono, and remained devout Catholics throughout their lives. The parish priest who visited the family regularly was the half-Spanish half-Welsh Father Francis Morgan. Tolkien family life was generally lived on the genteel side of poverty. However, the situation worsened in 1904, when Mabel Tolkien was diagnosed as having diabetes, usually fatal in those pre-insulin days. She died on 14 November of that year leaving the two orphaned boys effectively destitute.

At this point Father Francis took over, and made sure of the boys’ material as well as spiritual welfare, although in the short term they were boarded with an unsympathetic aunt-by-marriage, Beatrice Suffield, and then with a Mrs Faulkner. By this time Ronald was already showing remarkable linguistic gifts. He had mastered the Latin and Greek which was the staple fare of an arts education at that time, and was becoming more than competent in a number of other languages, both modern and ancient, notably Gothic, and later Finnish. He was already busy making up his own languages, purely for fun. He had also made a number of close friends at King Edward’s; in his later years at school they met regularly after hours as the “T. C. B. S.” (Tea Club, Barrovian Society, named after their meeting place at the Barrow Stores) and they continued to correspond closely and exchange and criticise each other’s literary work until 1916. However, another complication had arisen. Amongst the lodgers at Mrs Faulkner’s boarding house was a young woman called Edith Bratt.

When Ronald was 16, and she 19, they struck up a friendship, which gradually deepened. Eventually Father Francis took a hand, and forbade Ronald to see or even correspond with Edith for three years, until he was 21. Ronald stoically obeyed this injunction to the letter. In the summer of 1911, he was invited to join a party on a walking holiday in Switzerland, which may have inspired his descriptions of the Misty Mountains, and of Rivendell. In the autumn of that year he went up to Exeter College, Oxford where he stayed, immersing himself in the Classics, Old English, the Germanic languages (especially Gothic), Welsh and Finnish, until 1913, when he swiftly though not without difficulty picked up the threads of his relationship with Edith. He then obtained a disappointing second class degree in Honour Moderations, the “midway” stage of a 4-year Oxford “Greats” (i.e. Classics) course, although with an “alpha plus” in philology. As a result of this he changed his school from Classics to the more congenial English Language and Literature.

One of the poems he discovered in the course of his Old English studies was the Crist of Cynewulf – he was amazed especially by the cryptic couplet: Eálá Earendel engla beorhtast Hail Earendel brightest of angels, over Middle Earth sent to men. (“Middangeard” was an ancient expression for the everyday world between Heaven above and Hell below.) This inspired some of his very early and inchoate attempts at realising a world of ancient beauty in his versifying. In the summer of 1913 he took a job as tutor and escort to two Mexican boys in Dinard, France, a job which ended in tragedy. Though no fault of Ronald’s, it did nothing to counter his apparent predisposition against France and things French. Meanwhile the relationship with Edith was going more smoothly. She converted to Catholicism and moved to Warwick, which with its spectacular castle and beautiful surrounding countryside made a great impression on Ronald. However, as the pair were becoming ever closer, the nations were striving ever more furiously together, and war eventually broke out in August 1914.

War, Lost Tales and Academia Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Tolkien did not rush to join up immediately on the outbreak of war, but returned to Oxford, where he worked hard and finally achieved a first-class degree in June 1915. At this time he was also working on various poetic attempts, and on his invented languages, especially one that he came to call Qenya [sic], which was heavily influenced by Finnish – but he still felt the lack of a connecting thread to bring his vivid but disparate imaginings together. Tolkien finally enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers whilst working on ideas of Earendel [sic] the Mariner, who became a star, and his journeyings. For many months Tolkien was kept in boring suspense in England, mainly in Staffordshire. Finally it appeared that he must soon embark for France, and he and Edith married in Warwick on 22 March 1916. Eventually he was indeed sent to active duty on the Western Front, just in time for the Somme offensive.

After four months in and out of the trenches, he succumbed to “trench fever”, a form of typhus-like infection common in the insanitary conditions, and in early November was sent back to England, where he spent the next month in hospital in Birmingham. By Christmas he had recovered sufficiently to stay with Edith at Great Haywood in Staffordshire. During these last few months, all but one of his close friends of the “T. C. B. S.” had been killed in action. Partly as an act of piety to their memory, but also stirred by reaction against his war experiences, he had already begun to put his stories into shape, “… in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire” [Letters 66]. This ordering of his imagination developed into the Book of Lost Tales (not published in his lifetime), in which most of the major stories of the Silmarillion appear in their first form: tales of the Elves and the “Gnomes”, (i. e. Deep Elves, the later Noldor), with their languages Qenya and Goldogrin.

Here are found the first recorded versions of the wars against Morgoth, the siege and fall of Gondolin and Nargothrond, and the tales of Túrin and of Beren and Lúthien. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, although periods of remission enabled him to do home service at various camps sufficiently well to be promoted to lieutenant. It was when he was stationed in the Hull area that he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and there in a grove thick with hemlock Edith danced for him. This was the inspiration for the tale of Beren and Lúthien, a recurrent theme in his “Legendarium”. He came to think of Edith as “Lúthien” and himself as “Beren”. Their first son, John Francis Reuel (later Father John Tolkien) had already been born on 16 November 1917.

When the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918, Tolkien had already been putting out feelers to obtain academic employment, and by the time he was demobilised he had been appointed Assistant Lexicographer on the New English Dictionary (the “Oxford English Dictionary”), then in preparation. While doing the serious philological work involved in this, he also gave one of his Lost Tales its first public airing – he read The Fall of Gondolin to the Exeter College Essay Club, where it was well received by an audience which included Neville Coghill and Hugo Dyson, two future “Inklings”. However, Tolkien did not stay in this job for long. In the summer of 1920 he applied for the quite senior post of Reader (approximately, Associate Professor) in English Language at the University of Leeds, and to his surprise was appointed. At Leeds as well as teaching he collaborated with E. V. Gordon on the famous edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and continued writing and refining The Book of Lost Tales and his invented “Elvish” languages.

In addition, he and Gordon founded a “Viking Club” for undergraduates devoted mainly to reading Old Norse sagas and drinking beer. It was for this club that he and Gordon originally wrote their Songs for the Philologists, a mixture of traditional songs and original verses translated into Old English, Old Norse and Gothic to fit traditional English tunes. Leeds also saw the birth of two more sons: Michael Hilary Reuel in October 1920, and Christopher Reuel in 1924. Then in 1925 the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford fell vacant; Tolkien successfully applied for the post. Professor Tolkien, The Inklings and Hobbits In a sense, in returning to Oxford as a Professor, Tolkien had come home. Although he had few illusions about the academic life as a haven of unworldly scholarship (see for example Letters 250), he was nevertheless by temperament a don’s don, and fitted extremely well into the largely male world of teaching, research, the comradely exchange of ideas and occasional publication. In fact, his academic publication record is very sparse, something that would have been frowned upon in these days of quantitative personnel evaluation.

However, his rare scholarly publications were often extremely influential, most notably his lecture “Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics”. His seemingly almost throwaway comments have sometimes helped to transform the understanding of a particular field – for example, in his essay on “English and Welsh”, with its explanation of the origins of the term “Welsh” and its references to phonaesthetics (both these pieces are collected in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, currently in print). His academic life was otherwise largely unremarkable. In 1945 he changed his chair to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he retained until his retirement in 1959. Apart from all the above, he taught undergraduates, and played an important but unexceptional part in academic politics and administration. His family life was equally straightforward. Edith bore their last child and only daughter, Priscilla, in 1929. Tolkien got into the habit of writing the children annual illustrated letters as if from Santa Claus, and a selection of these was published in 1976 as The Father Christmas Letters. He also told them numerous bedtime stories, of which more anon.

In adulthood John entered the priesthood, Michael and Christopher both saw war service in the Royal Air Force. Afterwards Michael became a schoolmaster and Christopher a university lecturer, and Priscilla became a social worker. They lived quietly in North Oxford, and later Ronald and Edith lived in the suburb of Headington. However, Tolkien’s social life was far from unremarkable. He soon became one of the founder members of a loose grouping of Oxford friends (by no means all at the University) with similar interests, known as “The Inklings”. The origins of the name were purely facetious – it had to do with writing, and sounded mildly Anglo-Saxon; there was no evidence that members of the group claimed to have an “inkling” of the Divine Nature, as is sometimes suggested. Other prominent members included the above-mentioned Messrs Coghill and Dyson, as well as Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, and above all C. S. Lewis, who became one of Tolkien’s closest friends, and for whose return to Christianity Tolkien was at least partly responsible. The Inklings regularly met for conversation, drink, and frequent reading from their work-in-progress. The Storyteller Meanwhile Tolkien continued developing his mythology and languages.

As mentioned above, he told his children stories, some of which he developed into those published posthumously as Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, etc. However, according to his own account, one day when he was engaged in the soul-destroying task of marking examination papers, he discovered that one candidate had left one page of an answer-book blank. On this page, moved by who knows what anarchic daemon, he wrote “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit“. In typical Tolkien fashion, he then decided he needed to find out what a Hobbit was, what sort of a hole it lived in, why it lived in a hole, etc. From this investigation grew a tale that he told to his younger children, and even passed round. In 1936 an incomplete typescript of it came into the hands of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the publishing firm of George Allen and Unwin (merged in 1990 with HarperCollins). She asked Tolkien to finish it, and presented the complete story to Stanley Unwin, the then Chairman of the firm.

He tried it out on his 10-year old son Rayner, who wrote an approving report, and it was published as The Hobbit in 1937. It immediately scored a success, and has not been out of children’s recommended reading lists ever since. It was so successful that Stanley Unwin asked if he had any more similar material available for publication. By this time Tolkien had begun to make his Legendarium into what he believed to be a more presentable state, and as he later noted, hints of it had already made their way into The Hobbit. He was now calling the full account Quenta Silmarillion, or Silmarillion for short. He presented some of his “completed” tales to Unwin, who sent them to his reader. The reader’s reaction was mixed: dislike of the poetry and praise for the prose (the material was the story of Beren and Lúthien) but the overall decision at the time was that these were not commercially publishable. Unwin tactfully relayed this message to Tolkien, but asked him again if he was willing to write a sequel to The Hobbit.

Tolkien was disappointed at the apparent failure of The Silmarillion, but agreed to take up the challenge of “The New Hobbit”. This soon developed into something much more than a children’s story; for the highly complex 16-year history of what became The Lord of the Rings consult the works listed below. Suffice it to say that the now adult Rayner Unwin was deeply involved in the later stages of this opus, dealing magnificently with a dilatory and temperamental author who, at one stage, was offering the whole work to a commercial rival (which rapidly backed off when the scale and nature of the package became apparent). It is thanks to Rayner Unwin’s advocacy that we owe the fact that this book was published at all – Andave laituvalmes! His father’s firm decided to incur the probable loss of £1,000 for the succès d’estime, and publish it under the title of The Lord of the Rings in three parts during 1954 and 1955, with USA rights going to Houghton Mifflin. It soon became apparent that both author and publishers had greatly underestimated the work’s public appeal.

The “Cult” The Lord of the Rings rapidly came to public notice. It had mixed reviews, ranging from the ecstatic (W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis) to the damning (E. Wilson, E. Muir, P. Toynbee) and just about everything in between. The BBC put on a drastically condensed radio adaptation in 12 episodes on the Third Programme. In 1956 radio was still a dominant medium in Britain, and the Third Programme was the “intellectual” channel. So far from losing money, sales so exceeded the break-even point as to make Tolkien regret that he had not taken early retirement. However, this was still based only upon hardback sales. The really amazing moment was when The Lord of the Rings went into a pirated paperback version in 1965. Firstly, this put the book into the impulse-buying category; and secondly, the publicity generated by the copyright dispute alerted millions of American readers to the existence of something outside their previous experience, but which appeared to speak to their condition. By 1968 The Lord of the Rings had almost become the Bible of the “Alternative Society”. This development produced mixed feelings in the author.

On the one hand, he was extremely flattered, and to his amazement, became rather rich. On the other, he could only deplore those whose idea of a great trip was to ingest The Lord of the Rings and LSD simultaneously. Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick had similar experiences with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fans were causing increasing problems; both those who came to gawp at his house and those, especially from California who telephoned at 7 p.m. (their time – 3 a.m. his), to demand to know whether Frodo had succeeded or failed in the Quest, what was the preterite of Quenyan lanta-, or whether or not Balrogs had wings. So he changed addresses, his telephone number went ex-directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, a pleasant but uninspiring South Coast resort (Hardy’s “Sandbourne”), noted for the number of its elderly well-to-do residents. Meanwhile the cult, not just of Tolkien, but of the fantasy literature that he had revived, if not actually inspired (to his dismay), was really taking off – but that is another story, to be told in another place.

Other Writings Despite all the fuss over The Lord of the Rings, between 1925 and his death Tolkien did write and publish a number of other articles, including a range of scholarly essays, many reprinted in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (see above); one Middle-earth related work, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil; editions and translations of Middle English works such as the Ancrene Wisse, Sir Gawain, Sir Orfeo and The Pearl, and some stories independent of the Legendarium, such as the Imram, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun – and, especially, Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle, and Smith of Wootton Major. The flow of publications was only temporarily slowed by Tolkien’s death. The long-awaited Silmarillion, edited by Christopher Tolkien, appeared in 1977. In 1980 Christopher also published a selection of his father’s incomplete writings from his later years under the title of Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth.

In the introduction to this work Christopher Tolkien referred in passing to The Book of Lost Tales, “itself a very substantial work, of the utmost interest to one concerned with the origins of Middle-earth, but requiring to be presented in a lengthy and complex study, if at all” (Unfinished Tales, p. 6, paragraph 1). The sales of The Silmarillion had rather taken George Allen & Unwin by surprise, and those of Unfinished Tales even more so. Obviously, there was a market even for this relatively abstruse material and they decided to risk embarking on this “lengthy and complex study”. Even more lengthy and complex than expected, the resulting 12 volumes of the History of Middle-earth, under Christopher’s editorship, proved to be a successful enterprise. (Tolkien’s publishers had changed hands, and names, several times between the start of the enterprise in 1983 and the appearance of the paperback edition of Volume 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth, in 1997.) Finis After his retirement in 1959 Edith and Ronald moved to Bournemouth.

On 29 November 1971 Edith died, and Ronald soon returned to Oxford, to rooms provided by Merton College. Ronald died on 2 September 1973. He and Edith are buried together in a single grave in the Catholic section of Wolvercote cemetery in the northern suburbs of Oxford. (The grave is well signposted from the entrance.) The legend on the headstone reads: Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973 Further Reading J.R.R. Tolkien (Author of The Hobbit) Fantasy , Fiction , Children's Influences edit data John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE, was an English writer, poet, WWI veteran (a First Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers, British Army), philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the high fantasy classic works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings .

Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a close friend of C.S. Lewis . Christopher Tolkien published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion . These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented l John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE, was an English writer, poet, WWI veteran (a First Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers, British Army), philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the high fantasy classic works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings . Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a close friend of C.S. Lewis .

Christopher Tolkien published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion . These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth within it. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the word "legendarium" to the larger part of these writings. While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or more precisely, high fantasy. Tolkien's writings have inspired many other works of fantasy and have had a lasting effect on the entire field. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning dead celebrity in 2009. Religious influences J.R.R.

Tolkien, was born in South Africa in 1892, but his family moved to Britain when he was about 3 years old. When Tolkien was 8 years old, his mother converted to Catholicism, and he remained a Catholic throughout his life. In his last interview, two years before his death, he unhesitatingly testified, “I’m a devout Roman Catholic.” Tolkien married his childhood sweetheart, Edith, and they had four children. He wrote them letters each year as if from Santa Claus, and a selection of these was published in 1976 as The Father Christmas Letters . One of Tolkien’s sons became a Catholic priest. Tolkien was an advisor for the translation of the Jerusalem Bible . Tolkien once described The Lord of the Rings to his friend Robert Murray, an English Jesuit priest, as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." There are many theological themes underlying the narrative including the battle of good versus evil, the triumph of humility over pride, and the activity of grace.

In addition the saga includes themes which incorporate death and immortality, mercy and pity, resurrection, salvation, repentance, self-sacrifice, free will, justice, fellowship, authority and healing. In addition The Lord's Prayer "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" was reportedly present in Tolkien's mind as he described Frodo's struggles against the power of the "One Ring.'' ...more Featured Author: J. R. R. Tolkien Featured Author: J. R. R. Tolkien With News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times In This Feature ' The Hobbit ' (1938) "This is one of the most freshly original and delightfully imaginative books for children that have appeared in many a long day. . . .

a glorious account of a magnificent adventure, filled with suspense and seasoned with a quiet humor that is irresistible." ' Farmer Giles of Ham: The Rise and Wonderful Adventures of Farmer Giles, Lord of Tame, Count of Worminghall, and King of the Little Kingdom ' (1950) "There is a rare flavor in this new tale by the author of 'The Hobbit.' The sophisticated decorations, attractive to older tastes, may discourage some children." ' The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of "The Lord of the Rings" ,' reviewed by W. H. Auden (1954) "Tolkien has succeeded superbly, and what happened in the year of the Shire 1418 in the Third Age of Middle Earth is not only fascinating in A. D. 1954 but also a warning and an inspiration.

No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy than 'The Fellowship of the Ring.'" ' The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of "The Lord of the Rings" ' (1955) "That 'The Lord of the Rings' should appeal to readers of the most austere tastes suggests that they too now long for the old, forthright, virile kind of narrative. . . . the author has had intimate access to an epic tradition stretching back and back and disappearing in the mists of Germanic history, so that his story has a kind of echoing depth behind it . . ." ' The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of "The Lord of the Rings" ,' reviewed by W. H. Auden (1956) "Nobody seems to have a moderate opinion: either, like myself, people find it a masterpiece of its genre or they cannot abide it . . . The demands made on the writer's powers in an epic as long as 'The Lord of the Rings'are enormous . . . but I can only say that Mr. Tolkien has proved equal to them." ' Tree and Leaf ' (1965) ". . .

an illuminating if inescapably controversial view of the fairy tale and its function-a view supported not so much by bristling footnotes as by the wide reading and inner meditation of a man who is himself one of the most successful modern practitioners of the difficult art." ' Smith of Wootton Major ' (1968) "Like everything Tolkien has written, 'Smith of Wootton Major' is an elegy-for the decline of our human capacity for awe. . . . Like 'The Hobbit,' it is first and foremost a good tale, dense and engrossing, full of unexpected turns, worth telling for its own sake." ' The Silmarillion ' (1977) ". . . a legend collection of which the long tale, 'The Silmarillion,' makes up the main part. . . . stands below the trilogy because much of it contains only high seriousness; that is, here Tolkien cares much more about the meaning and coherence of his myth than he does about these glories of the trilogy . . ." ' Unfinished Tales: Of Numenor and Middle-earth ' (1980) ". . .

a production less of Tolkien himself than of the Tolkien industry -- a book for the specialist, the scholar of Middle-earth, the addict, who will doubtless revel in the wealth of lore that it provides. For the rest of us, I'm afraid, it cannot be more than a dim echo of glories past." ' The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien ' (1981) ". . . 374 letters written over 60 years . . . For the serious students of the tales this is a trove worthy of protection by one of his dragons. . . . Tolkien was a strange, complicated, quiet, difficult and humble man. There is a great deal of him in these letters." "Tolkien devotees will no doubt rejoice . . . much of the imaginative source material for the creations of the 'Lord of the Rings' can be recognized in these tales, and so can the evolution of Tolkien's style." ARTICLES ABOUT AND BY J. R. R. TOLKIEN: Explaining to a reporter why "The Fellowship of the Rings" appeared to be aimed at an older audience than "The Hobbit," Tolien said, "My work did not 'evolve' into a serious work.

It started like that." From 'Shadow-Bride' , a poem by J. R. R. Tolkien (1964) The Times reprinted part of a Tolkien poem from the book "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses From The Red Book." Books by J.R.R. Tolkien – The Tolkien Society Back to The Author The following list, compiled by Charles E. Noad and updated by Ian Collier and Daniel Helen, includes all of Tolkien’s major publications. It is ordered by date of publication. A Middle English Vocabulary. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1922. (This is presently bound in with Fourteenth Century Verse & Prose, ed. Kenneth Sisam, from Oxford University Press.) A glossary of Middle English words for students. Sir Gawain & The Green Knight. Ed. J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1925. (Now available in a second edition edited by Norman Davis.) A modern translation of the Middle English romance from the stories of King Arthur. The Hobbit: or There and Back Again. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1937.

(There was a second edition in 1951, and a third in 1966. Reprinted many times.) The bedtime story for his children famously begun on the blank page of an exam script that tells the tale of Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves in their quest to take back the Lonely Mountain from Smaug the dragon. Farmer Giles of Ham. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1949. A faux-medieval tale of a farmer and his adventures with giants, dragons, and the machinations of courtly life. The Fellowship of the Ring: being the first part of The Lord of the Rings. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1954. second edition, 1966. One of the world’s most famous books that continues the tale of the ring Bilbo found in The Hobbit and what comes next for it, him, and his nephew Frodo. The Two Towers: being the second part of The Lord of the Rings. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1954. Second edition, 1966.

The continuation of the story begun in The Fellowship of the Ring as Frodo and his companions continue their various journeys. The Return of the King: being the third part of The Lord of the Rings. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1955. Second edition, 1966. The conclusion to the story that we began in The Fellowship of the Ring and the perils faced by Frodo et al. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1962. A collection of sixteen ‘hobbit’ verses and poems taken from ‘The Red Book of Westmarch’. Ancrene Wisse: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle. Early English Text Society, Original Series No. 249. Oxford University Press, London, 1962. An edition of the Rule for a female medieval religious order. Tree and Leaf. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1964. New edition, incorporating “Mythopoeia”, Unwin Hyman, London, 1988.

Reprints Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy-Stories” and his short story “Leaf by Niggle”. Smith of Wootton Major. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1967. A short story of a small English village and its customs, its Smith, and his journeys into Faery. The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1967; George Allen and Unwin, London, 1968. (Second edition in 1978.) A collection of eight songs, 7 from The Lord of the Rings, set to music by Donald Swann. Bilbo’s Last Song. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1974. Originally produced as a poster image illustrated by Pauline Baynes, reprinted several times. First published as a hardback with new illustrations by Baynes by Unwin Hyman in 1990. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1975. Tolkien’s translations of these Middle English poems collected together. The Father Christmas Letters. Ed.

Baillie Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1976. A collection of Tolkien’s own illustrated letters from Father Christmas to his children. The Silmarillion. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1977. Tolkien’s own mythological tales, collected together by his son and literary executor, of the beginnings of Middle-earth (and the tales of the High Elves and the First Ages) which he worked on and rewrote over more than 50 years. Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1979. Revised edition, HarperCollins, London, 1992. A collection of Tolkien’s various illustrations and pictures. Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1980. More tales from Tolkien’s notes and drafts of the First, Second, and Third Ages of Middle-earth giving readers more background on parts of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter with Christopher Tolkien.

George Allen and Unwin, London, 1981. Tolkien wrote many letters and kept copies or drafts of them, giving readers all sorts of insights into his literary creations. The Old English ‘Exodus’. Ed. Joan Turville-Petre. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981. Tolkien’s translation with notes and commentary of the Old English poem. Mr. Bliss. George Allen & Unwin, London, 1982. A delightful illustrated story for children of a man’s misadventures. Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode. Ed. Alan Bliss. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1982. Tolkien’s translations and commentaries on the Old English texts for lectures he delivered in the 1920s. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1983. A collection of seven lectures or essays by Tolkien covering Beowulf, Gawain, and ‘On Fairy Stories’. The Book of Lost Tales, Part I. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 1.

George Allen and Unwin, London, 1983. The Book of Lost Tales, Part II. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 2. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1984. The Lays of Beleriand. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 3. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1985. The Shaping of Middle-earth. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 4. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1986. The Lost Road and Other Writings. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 5. Unwin Hyman, London, 1987. The Return of the Shadow. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 6. Unwin Hyman, London, 1988. The Treason of Isengard. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 7. Unwin Hyman, London, 1989. The War of the Ring. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 8.

Unwin Hyman, London, 1990. Sauron Defeated. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 9. HarperCollins, London, 1992. Morgoth’s Ring. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 10. HarperCollins, London, 1993. The War of the Jewels. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 11. HarperCollins, London, 1994. The Peoples of Middle-earth. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth: Vol. 12. HarperCollins, London, 1996. Roverandom. Ed. Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond. HarperCollins, London, 1998. In the 1920s a toy dog was lost on a seaside holiday, to cheer his son up Tolkien created a story of the dog’s adventures. Tales from the Perilous Realm. HarperCollins, London, 1997.

(Contains: Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, “Leaf by Niggle” and Smith of Wootton Major.) The Children of Húrin. Ed. Christopher Tolkien with illustrations by Alan Lee. HarperCollins, London, 2007. Christopher Tolkien’s collation of the various versions his father wrote of the story of Túrin Turambar into one seamless novel. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. HarperCollins, London 2009. Tolkien’s own versions of the story of Sigurd and his wife Gudrún, one of the great legends of northern antiquity. The Fall of Arthur. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. HarperCollins, London 2013. A collation of Tolkien’s versions of the tale of the end of the Arthurian cycle wherein Arthur’s realm is destroyed by Mordred’s treachery, featuring commentaries and essays by Christopher Tolkien. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. HarperCollins, London, 2014. The Story of Kullervo. Ed.

Verlyn Flieger. HarperCollins, London, 2015. A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages. Ed. Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins. HarperCollins, London, 2016. The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun. Ed. Verlyn Flieger. HarperCollins, London, 2016. Beren and Lúthien. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. HarperCollins, London, 2017. J.R.R. Tolkien - Biography - IMDb J.R.R. Tolkien Biography Showing all 73 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (2) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (52) | Personal Quotes (13) Overview (4) 5' 8½" (1.74 m) Mini Bio (2) English writer, scholar and philologist, Tolkien's father was a bank manager in South Africa. When his father died in 1896 his mother took him and his younger brother to his father's native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England.

The landscapes and Nordic mythology of the Midlands may have been the source for Tolkien's fertile imagination to write about 'the Shire' and 'hobbits' in his later book the Hobbit (1937). After his mother's death in 1904 he was looked after by Father Francis Xavier Morgan a RC priest of the Congregation of the Oratory. Tolkien was educated at King Edward VI school in Birmingham. He studied linguistics at Exeter College, Oxford, and took his B.A. in 1915. From 1915 to 1918 he fought in World War I with the Lancashire Fusiliers. It is believed that his experiences during the Battle of Jutland may have been fueled the darker side of his subsequent novels. Upon his return he worked as an assistant on the Oxford English Dictionary (1918-20) and took his M.A. in 1919. In 1920 he became a teacher in English at the University of Leeds.

He then went on to Merton College in Oxford, where he became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon (1925-45) and Merton professor of English Language and Literature (1945-59). His first scholarly publication was an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925). He also wrote books on Chaucer (1934) and Beowulf (1937). In 1939 Tolkien gave the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland titled: "On Fairy-Stories". Tolkien will however be remembered most for his books the Hobbit (1937) and the Lord of the Rings (1954-55). The Hobbit began as a bedtime story for his children that in his own words "grew in the telling". He wrote Lord of the Rings over a period of about 14 years which started by him sending his children bits and pieces of the story in his letters. Tolkien also discussed parts of his novels with fellow Oxfordian and fantasy writer CS Lewis during their 'meetings'.

He was trying to create a fantasy world so that he could explain how he had invented certain languages, and in doing so created 'Middle Earth'. However among his peers at Oxford his works were not well received as they were not considered 'scholarly'. It was after LOTR was published in paperback in the United States in 1965 that he developed his legendary cult following and also imitators. Tolkien was W. P. Ker lecturer at Glasgow University in 1953. In 1954 both the University of Liege and University College, Dublin, awarded him honorary doctorates. He received the CBE in 1972. He served as vice-president of the Philological Society and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an honorary fellow of Exeter College, and an honorary member of Hid islenzka Bokmennta-felag. Despite the immense popularity of his books today Tolkien did not greatly benefit from their sales. His son Christopher Tolkien was able to publish some of his works posthumously after his manuscripts were found.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Pedro Borges Spouse (1) ( 22 March 1916 - 29 November 1971) (her death) (4 children) Trade Mark (1) Trivia (52) Much of his work was published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien. Tolkien served in the Lancashire Fusilliers in the first world war and fought in the Battle of the Somme. He was discharged in 1917 suffering from "trench fever". During the flower-power sixties Leonard Nimoy recorded "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins". A friend and fellow Oxford don with C.S. Lewis . They were both members of the Inklings. Tolkien was one of the translators for The Jerusalem Bible. Made up languages as a young child. Widely considered as the founder of modern fantasy; the man who changed children's faerie tales into epic adventures (without losing the appeal). As of 2001, his novel, 'The Lord of the Rings', has sold over 52 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 25 different languages.

Tolkien and his wife, Edith, are buried together in a single grave in the Catholic section of Wolvercote cemetery in the northern suburbs of Oxford. (The grave is well signposted from the entrance.) The legend on the headstone reads: "Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971" and "John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973". The character names are those of lovers in Tolkien's novel, 'The Silmarillion'. Member of the Oxford literary circle along with writers C.S. Lewis , Jeremy Dyson, Charles Williams, Messrs Coghill, and Owen Barfield. Tolkien's reaction to several proposed film productions of his books was that he considered his works to be unstageable; he simply didn't feel that they could be successfully translated to a dramatic form. Although he had sold the film rights long before he died, he had no real expectation that "The Lord of the Rings" could be successfully filmed. Tolkien's mother introduced him to Latin, French, and German.

While at school (mostly at Oxford) he was taught or taught himself Greek, Middle English, Old English (also called Anglo Saxon), Old Norse (also called Old Icelandic), Gothic, Modern and medieval Welsh, Finnish, Spanish, and Italian. Other languages of which he had a working knowledge include Serbian, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, and Lombardic. In addition to these languages, Tolkien invented 14 different languages and assorted alphabets for his Middle-earth dwellers. Father of Christopher Tolkien , Michael Tolkien , Priscilla Tolkien , and John Tolkien The British rock band Marillion , popular in the UK and Europe during the 1980s, took their name from his posthumously published collection 'The Silmarillion'. The band's original drummer, Mick Pointer , was a Tolkien fan. His father died when Tolkien was 4, and his mother when he was 12. He and his brothers were then raised by a Catholic priest. Taught at the University of Leeds before teaching at Oxford from 1925 - 1959. Studied Old Norse and Old English at Oxford.

In 1999, 250,000 Amazon.com customers voted his The Lord of the Rings (first published 1954) as the "book of the millenium". He was a philologist - someone who studies the history of languages. The Inklings (Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams & Owen Barfield) met on Tuesdays for lunch at the 'Eagle and Child' pub in Oxford where they would read out pages from their books. Won the 'International Fantasy Award' in 1957 for his book 'The Lord of the Rings'. In 1973 he won the first 'Gandalf Award' (named after a character from his books) as Grandmaster (lifetime fantasy achivement). Posthumously he has been awarded the 'Locus Award' in 1978 for 'The Silmarillion' and the 'Mythopoeic Award' in 1981 for 'Unifinished Tales'. The 'Balrog Award' is also named after a character from his books.

Lord of the Ring-saga's world and its cast of characters have roots in real-world history and geography, from the world wars that dominated Tolkien's lifetime to the ancient language and legends of Finland. The Finnish national epic Kalevala inspired Tolkien and he taught himself the Finnish language so he could read it. The German Heavy Metal band Blind Guardian base a lot of their songs on Tolkien's work, such as Nightfall in Middle-Earth (which is based on the Silmarillion), and other songs: Gandalf's Rebirth, Lord of the Rings, By the gates of Moria, etc. Was extremely annoyed when 'The Lord of the Rings' was published in the mid-50s as three different stories, because he had never intended the tale to become a trilogy. He opposed the development of the Concorde supersonic jetliner. The lead characters in his best known works, Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit, and Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings, have both been played by Orson Bean and Ian Holm . Locus magazine conducted a poll in 1987 from among its readers to vote for the Best All-time Fantasy Novel.

Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings' (1955) and 'The Hobbit' (1934) won 1st and 2nd place respectively. They beat out classics like Alice in Wonderland (1865), Dracula (1897) & The Wizard of Oz (1900). The British progressive rock band Barclay James Harvest, popular in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s, recorded a single record under the pseudonymous name of 'Bombadil' in 1972, and a song under their own name of BJH, titled 'Galadriel' on their second album 'Once Again' (1971). They found much inspiration from Tolkien's writings, having come from the Saddleworth country in northern England. The original publication of The Lord of the Rings was delayed for two reasons. Tolkien tried to get out of his obligation to his publisher, Allen & Unwin, because another publisher had agreed to his wish to use different colors of ink for different parts of the book. In particular, he wanted the writing on the Ring to be printed in red ink.

That deal fell apart, and he went back to Allen & Unwin. The second reason was that he wanted The Silmarillion; which told the history of the Elves and of Aragorn's race, the Numenoreans; to be published alongside Rings. No publisher would agree to this, so The Silmarillion was not published until after his death. One change that he vehemently opposed in any adaptation of his work was the intercutting of the various story threads that he had deliberately kept separate. To date, every adaptation has intercut the stories. In "The Lord of the Rings", the wizard Gandalf is revealed to have an Elvish name, Mithrandir. This is an indirect reference to the story's Christian underpinnings. The name Mithrandir is derived from Mithras, a Pagan god with several parallels to stories of the life of Jesus: he was born on December 25 as the offspring of the Sun, had a Last Supper with his twelve followers, died, was buried under a rock, and reborn. Gandalf, like Mithras and Jesus, dies and is reborn.

Mithras sacrificed a cosmic bull, symbolizing darkness, while Gandalf falls fighting the Balrog. According to the book, the Fellowship that Gandalf leads sets out on December 25. Shortly after the original publication of The Hobbit in 1937, his publisher, Allen & Unwin, tried to license several foregin language version, included a German version. Before any German publishers would publish it, the Reich government wrote him a letter asking whether or not he was Aryan. He responded by saying that "I can only assume that you are asking if I am Jewish. I regret to respond that I have no ancestors among that gifted people." On account of this backhanded reply, The Hobbit was not published in Germany until after 1945. By 2004 his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy [1954-1955] had sold more than 100 million copies and is the best selling fiction book of all time. It is the 3rd best selling book of all time after "The Bible" [c.

1451-1455] (more than 6 billion copies) and "Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung" [1966] (900 million copies). He started writing The Lord of the Rings with no idea where the story would eventually go. This led to it not being structured at all like a proper novel, with many characters left underdeveloped, many ideas repeated, and character groups being essentially forgotten for very long periods. Said in an interview that the character Faramir was the Lord of the Ring character who was the most like himself. The only actor from Peter Jackson's film adaptations of "Lord of the Rings" to have actually met JRR Tolkien is Christopher Lee. Lee was very fond of Tolkien's books and Tolkien himself even said that Lee would have been a good choice for the role of the wizard Saruman. Once met Ava Gardner and neither knew why the other was famous. While writing the Lord of the Rings, he originally intended for Aragorn to marry Éowyn, but later decided to have her marry Faramir and created the Arwen character for Aragorn.

Prior to their reunion inside the city of Minas Tirith, his characters Aragorn and Eowyn only have one conversation during the course of The Lord of the Rings, and it takes place shortly before Aragorn takes the Paths of the Dead in The Return of the King. Peter Jackson's film adaptation adds several more scenes between them, beginning in The Two Towers. Although all of these interactions were invented for the movie, all but three of them use dialogue from their one scene together in the book. The appendices to The Return of the King features The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, in which Aragorn's relationship with Arwen is given in detail, as well as his relationships with Elrond and his mother, Gilraen. His mother's final words to him are "Onen i-Estel Edain, u-chebin estel anim," which means "I have given Hope to the Dunedain, I have kept no hope for myself." This line is used in the film as the last verbal exchange between Aragorn and Elrond. In addition, Estel, or Hope, was a name by which Aragorn was known before his true heritage was revealed to him.

Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, vol. 134, pages 427-436. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005. Many of his papers, including original manuscripts and illustrations for "The Hobbit" (1937), "Farmer Giles of Ham" (1949), and "The Lord of the Rings" (1954-1955), were sold to the Raynor Memorial Libraries of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA. The library approached him, Tolkien selected Marquette because he wanted his papers to be kept by a Catholic institution which would be willing to provide for proper care and preservation of the materials. The library periodically puts selected items from the collection on public display. His other papers are at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. Colleagues urged him to submit his elvish alphabet for consideration to win a prize established by George Bernard Shaw for the creation of a phonetically consistent alphabet for English. He declined to do so, another example of his reluctance to exploit his creation.

The first music inspired by his work was written by the English songwriting team of Donald Swann and Michael Flanders , who set poems from "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" and other works to music and included them in their 1963 revue "At the Drop of a Hat". When an interviewer called Swann "elfin", he said, "Yes, and in the show, I sing in Elvish!" In 1970, Swedish keyboardist Bo Hansson recorded "Music Inspired by 'Lord of the Rings'", becoming the first in a series of pop artists to do so for the rock-oriented market. Derived his two main Elvish languages from a fictional root language. High Elvish (or Quenya) was derived from the root using the principles of Finnish phonology and grammar, while Low Elvish (or Sindarin) was derived using the principles of Welsh phonology and grammar. The character of Gollum from his epic "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is ranked #10 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time. Once said that the words "cellar door" were the most beautiful phrase he had heard.

Though he is not identified as the person who said this, and director Richard Kelly mistakenly gives credit to Edgar Allan Poe in his DVD commentary, his fondness for the phrase is referenced by Drew Barrymore in the film 'Donny Darko' (2001). J.R.R. Tolkien | Biography & Facts | Britannica.com Rudyard Kipling J.R.R. Tolkien, in full John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (born January 3, 1892, Bloemfontein , South Africa—died September 2, 1973, Bournemouth , Hampshire, England), English writer and scholar who achieved fame with his children’s book The Hobbit (1937) and his richly inventive epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). J.R.R. Tolkien. AP/Wide World Photos At age four Tolkien, with his mother and younger brother, settled near Birmingham , England , after his father, a bank manager, died in South Africa . In 1900 his mother converted to Roman Catholicism , a faith her elder son also practiced devoutly. On her death in 1904, her boys became wards of a Catholic priest.

Four years later Tolkien fell in love with another orphan, Edith Bratt, who would inspire his fictional character Lúthien Tinúviel. His guardian, however, disapproved, and not until his 21st birthday could Tolkien ask Edith to marry him. In the meantime, he attended King Edward’s School in Birmingham and Exeter College, Oxford (B.A., 1915; M.A., 1919). During World War I he saw action in the Somme. After the Armistice he was briefly on the staff of The Oxford English Dictionary (then called The New English Dictionary). For most of his adult life, he taught English language and literature , specializing in Old and Middle English , at the Universities of Leeds (1920–25) and Oxford (1925–59). Often busy with academic duties and also acting as an examiner for other universities, he produced few but influential scholarly publications, notably a standard edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925; with E.V. Gordon) and a landmark lecture on Beowulf (Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, 1936).

Tolkien had completed a translation of Beowulf in 1926, and it was posthumously published, along with classroom lectures he had given on the subject, some of his notes, and an original short story inspired by the legend , as Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary (2014). He also published an edition of the Ancrene Wisse (1962). In private, Tolkien amused himself by writing an elaborate series of fantasy tales, often dark and sorrowful, set in a world of his own creation. He made this “legendarium,” which eventually became The Silmarillion , partly to provide a setting in which “Elvish” languages he had invented could exist. But his tales of Arda and Middle-earth also grew from a desire to tell stories, influenced by a love of myths and legends . To entertain his four children, he devised lighter fare, lively and often humorous. The longest and most important of those stories, begun about 1930, was The Hobbit , a coming-of-age fantasy about a comfort-loving “hobbit” (a smaller relative of Man) who joins a quest for a dragon ’s treasure.

In 1937 The Hobbit was published, with pictures by the author (an accomplished amateur artist), and was so popular that its publisher asked for a sequel. The result, 17 years later, was Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings , a modern version of the heroic epic . A few elements from The Hobbit were carried over, in particular a magic ring, now revealed to be the One Ring, which must be destroyed before it can be used by the terrible Dark Lord, Sauron, to rule the world. But The Lord of the Rings is also an extension of Tolkien’s Silmarillion tales, which gave the new book a “history” in which Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Men were already established. Scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), directed … © 2003 New Line Cinema Productions, Inc. Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales Contrary to statements often made by critics, The Lord of the Rings was not written specifically for children, nor is it a trilogy, though it is often published in three parts: The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers , and The Return of the King .

It was divided originally because of its bulk and to reduce the risk to its publisher should it fail to sell. In fact it proved immensely popular. On its publication in paperback in the United States in 1965, it attained cult status on college campuses. Although some critics disparage it, several polls since 1996 have named The Lord of the Rings the best book of the 20th century, and its success made it possible for other authors to thrive by writing fantasy fiction . It had sold more than 50 million copies in some 30 languages by the turn of the 21st century. A film version of The Lord of the Rings by New Zealand director Peter Jackson , released in three installments in 2001–03, achieved worldwide critical and financial success. Jackson then adapted The Hobbit as a trilogy comprising the films An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). In 2004 the text of The Lord of the Rings was carefully corrected for a 50th-anniversary edition.

Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Several shorter works by Tolkien appeared during his lifetime. These include a mock-medieval story, Farmer Giles of Ham (1949); The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), poetry related to The Lord of the Rings; Tree and Leaf (1964), with the seminal lecture “On Fairy-Stories” and the tale “Leaf by Niggle”; and the fantasy Smith of Wootton Major (1967). Tolkien in his old age failed to complete The Silmarillion, the “prequel” to The Lord of the Rings, and left it to his youngest son, Christopher, to edit and publish (1977). Subsequent study of his father’s papers led Christopher to produce Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth (1980); The History of Middle-earth, 12 vol.

(1983–96), which traces the writing of the legendarium, including The Lord of the Rings, through its various stages; and The Children of Húrin (Narn I Chin Hurin: The Tale of the Children of Hurin), published in 2007, one of the three “Great Tales” of The Silmarillion in longer form. British Culture and Politics Among other posthumous works by Tolkien are The Father Christmas Letters (1976; also published as Letters from Father Christmas), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981), the children’s stories Mr. Bliss (1982) and Roverandom (1998), and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009), two narrative poems drawn from northern legend and written in the style of the Poetic Edda . The Fall of Arthur (2013) was an unfinished verse exploration of Arthurian legend inspired by the Middle English Morte Arthure. Books written by J.R.R. Tolkien Books written by J.R.R. Tolkien Books by J.R.R.Tolkien "I am in too great doubt to rule.

To prepare or to let be? To prepare for war, which is yet only guessed: train craftsmen and tillers in the midst of peace for bloodspilling and battle: put iron in the hands of greedy captains who will love only conquest, and count the slain as their glory? Will they say to Eru: [God - MT] At least your enemies were amongst them? Or to fold hands, while friends die unjustly: let men live in blind peace, until the ravisher is at the gate? What then will they do: match naked hands against iron and die in vain, or flee leaving the cries of women behind them? Will they say to Eru: At least I spilled no blood? " J.R.R. Tolkien , Unfinished Tales J.R.R. Tolkien is for sure one of the most important writers of the 20th century. He is recognized by most for The Lord of the Rings , a three-volume novel cycle, and for The Hobbit , a children's book (in origin) published in 1937. His work was turned into movies, theater plays and even portrait tattoos. By academics he is recognised for his marvellous essays and contributions to high quality philological works.

Besides the well known Middle-Earth related works, he wrote more than 29 books (most of them can be seen at the left menu), then translated or contributed to 36 more books, and made contributions to 39 periodicals (see books edited, translated, or with contributions by J.R.R.Tolkien ). The volume of his work appears to be rather large, but we must remember that he was a professor. He was expected to publish a great deal. Examples of his academic works are for example A middle English Vocabulary and Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics . His work on Lord of the Rings and other works of Middle Earth never really took him very far away from his work on academic projects. His passion was, after all, philology, which Tom Shippey (Author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author ot the Century) defines as "the study of historical forms of a language or languages ...

and also of related language." Tolkien studied Old and Middle English, along with the "ancient languages of Britain." His extensive study of ancient languages and literature comes out in his choice of character names, in the riddles and songs that appear throughout his texts, and also in his choice of settings, as he was "reconstructing" a world from words. Do not know how to write a book on your own? Get free writing guide on Academichelp.net … Full Article . Enjoyed this post? Click to get future articles delivered by email or get the RSS feed . Spread the news about this J.R.R. Tolkien article: J.R.R. Tolkien biography | birthday, trivia | South African Linguist | Who2 J.R.R. Tolkien Biography Name at birth: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien English writer J.R.R. Tolkien is a towering figure in fantasy literature. He wrote the novel The Hobbit (1937) and the classic trilogy The Lord of the Rings (published 1954-56): highly imaginative tales of elves, dwarves, and wizards in a land known as Middle Earth.

The hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and the wizard Gandalf figured prominently in these stories and became Tolkien’s best-known characters. Tolkien was an expert linguist and a longtime professor of language and literature at Oxford University. He was also part of C.S. Lewis ‘s informal group of scholars and writers known as “The Inklings.” Extra credit The three books which make up The Lord of the Rings are The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King… A live-action film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings, directed by Peter Jackson , was a great box-office success; the first film in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, was released in December of 2001, followed by sequels in December of 2002 and 2003. Those films starred Elijah Wood as Frodo , Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn and Cate Blanchett as Galadriel … Tolkien’s colleagues at Oxford included the famed poet and author Robert Graves … In 2006 one of Tolkien’s sons, Christopher Tolkien, announced the completion of the 30-year editing process for the publication of his father’s work The Children of Hurin.

Question: What are author J.R.R. Tolkien’s first names?
Answer: John Ronald Reuel